The coronavirus pandemic has claimed the lives of 150,000 Britons. A group of British parliamentarians has published a report entitled “Coronavirus: Lessons Learned So Far,” calling the government’s actions at the start of the pandemic the most serious public health failure in the country’s history. The document was prepared by two parliamentary committees – Health and Social Protection and Science and Technology – with representatives from all parties represented in Parliament. The purpose of this 150-page document is to evaluate the actions of the authorities and to analyze the reasons for the highest mortality rate from Covid-19 in Western Europe (approximately 150,000 people). The head of the two committees that prepared the report, the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, emphasized that the nature of the pandemic and the speed with which it spread took the whole world by surprise, and it was impossible to get everything right. “Britain’s experience in this struggle is one of both significant successes on a range of issues and major failures. It is important to learn lessons from both,” Hunt said.
This is a wall of remembrance for the victims of the coronavirus in the center of London, on the banks of the Thames. Relatives of the deceased leave hearts with the names of their loved ones on them – tens of thousands of inscriptions. The authors of the report concluded that the initial strategy of the British authorities to achieve so-called herd immunity was a big mistake. In addition to being a failure in itself, it also led to the first lockdown in the country being imposed much later than the situation required and resulted in an unjustified loss of life. The first cases of coronavirus infection were reported in the United Kingdom on January 31, 2020, and the first nationwide lockdown was not announced until March 23, when quarantine measures were already in place in many countries. The report emphasizes that the government based its decisions on the opinions of its scientific advisors, who in turn drew on their experience in fighting the flu epidemic – when the focus was on controlling the spread of the virus rather than trying to stop it altogether. At the same time, the authors say, it quickly became clear that the world was facing a fundamentally new type of infection, and that the decisions of the British government’s Science Council raised serious questions. The document also highlighted the successful steps taken by the authorities to combat the pandemic, in particular the universal vaccination program, which was organized quickly and successfully. The Downing Street representative thanked the parliamentarians for their report and said the government would hold an open public inquiry next year on the outcome of the pandemic response. The report’s conclusions relate primarily to the situation in England. The decisions of the governments of Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland were not analyzed.